Harvey Brooks Foundation grows its own to combat food insecurity

July 25, 2023

There’s a popular proverb that says, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The Harvey Brooks Foundation has successfully applied this wisdom to design a common-sense approach to tackle food insecurity on Joliet’s southeast side: the We Will Grow Community Garden and food pantry. The 70-by-70-foot garden is powered by staff and youth in grades K–12 who take part in an afterschool program that lacked funding but was revitalized in 2022 thanks to an Impact Grant of $100,000 from Northern Illinois Community Initiatives (NICI).

“Food insecurity in the region is a very real and serious problem,” said Melvin Leach, Business and Community Liaison for the Harvey Brooks Foundation. “To be able to plant and bring food to the table is exciting.”

From October 2022 through the end of April, 15 students attended the program for three hours, three days a week. They learned about nutrition, gardening and harvesting, and prepared for the spring planting season in May. Students returning for summer camp in June, 50 in total, finished planting, and about a month later harvested cucumbers, tomatoes, collard greens, radishes, zucchini and squash. The produce was packaged and handed out at the weekly food pantry distribution every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“What got NICI to look at us in the first place was the community garden,” Leach said. “It’s still the driving curriculum that is overflowing to everything we teach, including nutrition.”

The students clearly enjoy getting their hands dirty. Staff provide little extras for them to keep them engaged and thinking critically. Esther Leach, Melvin’s sister, whom he calls their “resident green thumb,” bought white lab coats and safety goggles for the students to encourage them to think like scientists. Last October, the foundation put on a health fair and sold dried herbs from the garden such as sage, mint, oregano and chives for $2 a bottle. Students in the afterschool program helped with the labeling. Leach said they are hoping to expand that program this fall.

But there is a lot more work to do to sustainably impact food deserts in the predominantly African American communities the foundation serves. So, NICI has renewed the foundation’s grant for another $100,000. Now, Leach said, the foundation can seriously take the next step in its food security plan: opening a farmers’ market. Leach is in talks with five other community gardens and a black-owned blueberry farm in Kankakee to join the effort. Within two years, the goal is to raise enough money to finance a brick-and-mortar grocery store on property adjacent to the community garden where residents can also buy meat, eggs and milk.

“I think the farmer’s market will always be a live part of that grocery store,” he said. “The partners we develop in the farmer’s market will be able to bring their produce yearly to that opportunity.”

On the advice of NICI Executive Director Tovah McCord, the foundation is adding programmatic elements to its offerings in hopes of attracting investment from corporations outside of Nicor Gas to bring its full vision to life. Leach and his team are currently working with local partners and businesses to develop curriculum for each of seven pillars that he calls the foundation’s “kingdom principles”: financial literacy; education; employment; health, nutrition, exercise and wellness, marriage and family; leisure, rest and retirement; and life skills and values.

“So often, nonprofits with great ideas get stalled due to funding. We want our grant recipients to see our gift as more than getting by for another year, but a leg up that allows them to develop a long-term strategy for how they will get buy-in from multiple funding sources,” McCord said. “I’m excited to watch how the Harvey Brooks Foundation grows from these efforts.”

Leach is, too. He and his staff are planning to enroll in a course called “How to Grow Your Garden Business” at Joliet Junior College this fall. “We’re looking at taking that class, so we’ll have structure to our farmer’s market,” he said.